Elmore Leonard On The Silver Screen

I haven't seen half of these, yet I am strangely compelled to vote for Out of Sight anyway.

search a great interview last month or so, i think npr, he went on at length about his experience screenwriting and favorite adaptations (said the first 3:10 was the worst movie he's ever seen)

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wtf, the orginal 3:10 To Yuma is perfectly all right, and lacking most of the remake's dumbest aspects (Russel Crowe's cursed gun, the cheap ending.)

Voted The Tall T so someone would, but there's a lot of good movies in this.

he was miffed at the ending to the 2nd one actually

haven't hardly seen any of these btw i just brake 4 hearing old dudes getting interviewed.

his musings on the pulp era were the most interesting. he said tbh he sucked at screenwriting himself

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John Hawkes and the former Mos Def to star in The Switch:

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2012/02/john-hawkes-jackie-brown-prequel.html

He's giving a bookstore reading/signing this morning at a little place in the suburbs--Elmore Leonard, not John Hawkes--and I'm tempted to go.

I'm a little excited about The Switch – it's a good little ripper of a novel, and I'd be curious to see a non QT adaptation of the character. (Although JB the best thing QT ever did).

xp I'm sort of surprised he still does bookstore events, he's getting up there. I'd love to see him.

we need a post-Justified repoll.

your flatscreen aint silver

Went to the reading/signing--just a small bookstore in Risky Business/Ordinary People country. Maybe 25 people there, mostly 60s, 70s, 80s. For the reading part, he read fan letters from inmates. Enviably sharp and articulate, looked and seemed in very good health.

Q: Why do all of your books have one-syllable titles?
A: You mean like Unknown Man #89?

Q: You've had 25 films made frm your books. How many did you enjoy?
A [pause, counting]: Seven.

Also talked about getting paid $95 for 3:10 to Yuma the short story, $4,000 for the first film, and nothing for the remake.

http://www.elmoreleonard.com/images/uploads/10PA21.jpg

I watched Mr. Majestyk last night, and I'm glad to see it picked up a few votes here. Give it a chance sometime if you like other Leonard stuff.

I watched Killshot last night. It wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, but it was still pretty bad.

Hope never to see Mickey Rourke as a Native American ever again.

the novel is pretty damn solid. the movie seemed all wrong, though...just from what i know about it and the casting and everything. diane lane seems like a decent choice, i guess.

she tried her hardest, i think. and yeah, seeing the film sort of made me wonder if i was misremember parts of the novel, or perhaps incorrectly calculated its quality. cuz i remember liking it a lot and thinking the carmen character was a very strong female character. she seems a bit more of a typical damsel in the film. tho she still does use guns.

also, and i don't usually say this abt anything, i think some of the character history could have been omitted or glossed over, perhaps in service of adding scenes that would make the plot a bit more clear. there's one point where we suddenly shift to a scene of carmen, scared-but-relieved when her husband comes home, but we don't see what it is that has apparently frightened her, and we don't see her call her husband. leonard can do this sort of stuff in the novels i think, where he'll gloss over a plotpoint, but because the reader is reading at his or her own pace it is usually easy to connect the dots. in this instance i thought the dvd player might have skipped!

i bought this dvd on a semi-intoxicated whim btw, it can be had for a couple bucks just about anywhere.

when i was reading the book i imagined a lot of other actors in some of the roles. richie felt very much like a john hawkes or, idk, jeremy davies kind of part. joseph gordon levitt seemed wrong. mickey rourke i think is an actor best used in extremely small doses at this point. why not get wes studi or trejo for his part?

i'm pretty partial to diane lane, i guess. lord have mercy imo.

her now-ex josh brolin actually might have owned the wayne role, he's just the right amount of in-over-his-(lunk)head. thomas jane seems a little too in control.